MIGRANTS MATTER

Migrants Matter is an advocacy campaign led by students from close to 40 countries. Before we thought of launching a campaign, we talked, like most students do. We talked about boys, girls, wine, movies, music… And we talked about the challenges facing the world today. Quite often we ended up talking about migrants. We realised we all, even though we come from countries as diverse as the UK, Greece, Rwanda, Mexico and Finland, shared the same basic values. We all got a bad gut feeling when thinking of migrants being locked-up in detention centres for up to 18 months. Our voices always rose when we spoke about trafficking or migrants being exploited by their employers. Most of us blushed when describing how migrants are treated when they enter our own countries.

One day we got tired of talking. It was time for action. We decided to launch “Migrants Matter”. Our long-term goal is to convince the EU-countries to ratify the sleeping UN Convention on Migrant Workers. (You didn’t know it existed? Check it out here!) Ratification won’t change everything, but it will be a major step towards ensuring that migrants are treated with dignity. Our short and mid-term goals are to have fun, learn more about the challenges and opportunities connected to migration, and to make it easier for people who share our values to talk about migration.

We don’t have money. And we don’t have a big organisation supporting us. But we have passion, freedom of speech and good Internet connection. We will use it all for what it is worth. You are very welcome to join our fight!